wakeboardwhan

I’m having an oil leak problem from the front oil seal that I can’t figure out. Little background…I just rebuilt this motor using a 91’ short block and the rest of the parts of my stock 88’ motor. Bored .020 over, 261 cam, crank polished, every new seal, bearing, gasket, piston, rings, etc from Engnbldr. Everything plastigaged and checked out perfect during assembly. Ran a 30w break in oil and broke the cam in correctly at first startup. Timing, idle, etc is all set correctly.

When I rebuilt the engine I installed a new oil pump. It’s been leaking from the front oil seal ever since. I realized I forgot to seal up the top oil pump bolt so I took it all apart, threw some Permatex Ultra Black on the threads, and reinstalled. Still leaked. So I took everything apart again and noticed the pulley was grooved. I pulled the whole oil pump off, replaced the o ring underneath, replaced the crank seal again, brand new pulley from Summit Racing, and re-sealed the top oil pump bolt. It’s still leaking. I threw dye in the system and noticed the relief valve on the brand new oil pump was loose so I tightened it up and I thought that fixed it. Still leaking. Double checked to make sure the hidden bolt at the top of the motor had RTV on it. Since then I’ve also installed an oil pressure gauge to verify that oil pressure is within spec and it is. I checked to make sure the PCV is good (it was replaced about 500 miles before the rebuild) and it was good. I verified the crankcase baffle inside the valve cover was flowing freely too. So I shouldn’t have excessive pressure.

I can visibly see the oil flying off the crankshaft pulley and going everywhere when I rev the motor up but everything has been replaced. Any ideas?

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Did you get the oil pump from EngineBuilder ??

Parts get past quality inspection all the time .

Did you ever measure the fit of the seal with the pump .

Installing the seal with the oil pump off ??

Getting the seal seated correct .

Damaging the seal installing the pulley .

Could very well be a machining error on the pump

wakeboardwhan

Yup, brand new pump from Engnbldr.

Seal and pump weren't physically measured but I test fit the seal on the harmonic balancer/crank pulley.

The newest seal was installed while the oil pump was off the truck.

The seal was seated flush with the pump using a block of wood.

The seal was lubed with some grease first then the pulley was slid on as carefully as I could.

Based on some other suggestions I got last night I'm pulling the pump back off and checking the clearance on it with a feeler gauge. Somebody was having a similar problem and it was because the timing cover was shifted slightly. I'm also going to try using the Toyota FIPG on the top bolt instead of RTV. While I'm in there I'm replacing the timing cover bolts with a new set from LCE just to be 100% sure they are all the right lengths. But I'm still open to suggestions.

wakeboardwhan

So based off a suggestion I got off a Toyota Facebook page I checked the clearance between the drive gear and timing cover. It was quite a bit off. I could only get a 0.10mm feeler gauge on the drivers side and a 0.40mm gauge on the passenger side. So this morning I decided to pull the whole timing cover off and see if I could put it back on more centered. It looks like it's still shifted no matter what I do. So maybe a manufacturing defect in the timing cover?


It was a brand new DNJ cover that I bought from the machine shop when I did the rebuild and they decked the block and timing cover together just slightly. So it's going to be a pain to get it to fit back up and deck a new timing cover again if I have to go that route.

wakeboardwhan

Just wanted to add a bit to this if anybody runs into the same problem.

When I took the block to the machine shop I also bought a new timing cover off of them. They bolted the timing cover to the block then just slightly decked the head and timing cover together. When they took the timing cover off the alignment ring stayed inside the timing cover instead of the block. Then they put the timing cover back into the box which pushed the alignment ring flat and flush inside the timing cover. So esentially it was acting like the alignment ring wasn't there at all when I re-installed it. Obviously not the machine shops fault at all. Just something I completely overlooked during assembly. That caused the timing cover to not be aligned, causing the timing cover and crank to not be aligned, which means the harmonic balancer and oil pump seal weren't perfectly aligned. Causing a massive oil leak.

In the first picture you can see that the top alignment ring was missing during assembly. The second picture shows how those alignment rings can be pushed flush inside the timing cover making them useless.

I ripped it all apart and finally last night had the time to put it all back together. Just letting all the FIPG dry now. I'll hopefully have time to fire it up and have it driving tonight or tomorrow night depending on when I have time. Talk about a major PITA over one small little piece I overlooked during assembly.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Glad you found what it was